OFF TOPIC: Police: Derision Over Flatulence Was Stabbing Motive

It does not take much to set many off these days. Sadly so, but this is an example of what has been in the news recently.

1-19-2011 Connecticut:

A 21-year-old city man charged with stabbing four people at a party Saturday night, killing one, told investigators he became enraged because people were criticizing him for passing gas, police said.

Marc Higgins, who was described by witnesses as being "very drunk," stormed out of the party, came back armed with three knives and started stabbing people indiscriminately, according to court documents released Monday.

Matthew Walton, 21, also of Bristol, died of stab wounds after the attack, police said. Two men and a woman also were stabbed, but all have been released from Bristol Hospital.

Higgins told police he was angry at being derided and wanted to teach people that they shouldn't trifle with him, according to the court documents.

Higgins, of 40 Pardee St., appeared in Superior Court in Bristol on Tuesday and was ordered held on $2 million bond. A judge transferred his case to Superior Court in New Britain, where major cases are heard.

According to court documents, police were called to 126 High St. late Saturday after a 911 caller reported a stabbing. When officers arrived, they found Walton in a first-floor apartment badly wounded and unresponsive. A woman, Sandra Ranger,18, also was suffering from serious stab wounds. Both were taken to Bristol Hospital, where Walton was pronounced dead.

Police later learned that two others, David Klett, 19, and Tyler Basso, 18, had also been stabbed but went to the hospital on their own. Ranger, Klett and Basso are all Bristol residents, police said.

Police say Higgins got into an argument with another person at the party, Stacy Buccheri, who chastised him for being flatulent. Witnesses told police that Buccheri slapped Higgins, who smashed a beer bottle and then stormed out of the apartment.

He returned about 45 minutes later, police said, and attacked several people on a porch with knives, including all four who were wounded.

Higgins fled by the time police arrived, but turned himself in to police a few hours later, police said.

Police said Higgins confessed to the attacks, and referred to Walton as a friend and Ranger as an acquaintance. He told investigators that he didn't specifically target them and that they were simply the first people he saw when he returned to the party, police said. ..Source.. KEN BYRON